#unrequited banorashipping time

[thinkaboutmeff7au]

flash time 103

1984.

“Let me take you home tonight…”

I wake up the same way I dozed off—in a weird haze. At first, I don’t even know I’m awake. I try to remember what I was dreaming about…but I don’t really remember that either. It’s like smoke in the wind. I could be sobering up…but I’m only going to really know if I open my mouth.

“Uurgh,” I grumble. I’m really warm. Angeal’s beside me, snoring lightly.

My eyes snap open.

Okay, okay. I’m at his house, I’m in his room with the shitty gray-brown carpet and the dark wood paneling. That Boston record’s almost over. I’ve been nestled in the crook of his arm while we napped together after school. I sit up and feel dizzy. Fuck, fuck, fuck…I look down at him. He looks so peaceful. My heart aches. I wish I hadn’t woken up right yet.

I gotta go. I’ve gotta get out of here, before he wakes up.

Luckily, he’s beat enough to stay undisturbed as I stumble out of bed. I’m still a little high, but a cigarette will fix that up, or some coffee. I weave over to the record player and turn it down slowly before plucking the needle up. It scratches a little, but it’s still not enough to wake him up. He just rolls over and hugs the blankets where I was laying. I stare at him a little longer…

He’s so good to me. He’s so fucking good. I dunno if he feels obligated to keep an eye on my sorry ass after we met and I was a mess. I’m still a mess. And I dunno if I fell in love with him because he was the one God damned person who gave a shit about me, who actually wanted to be friends with me. Not just because I traded weed for blowjobs.

Oh shit, how long have I been standing here, watching him sleep? Fucking queer ass idiot. Okay. I’m gonna leave. Have to. Chest hurts.

Angeal’s mom Gillian Hewley has the TV on in the living room, but is sitting having a cigarette at the kitchen table. Smells like smoke and…pot roast? Some pot is simmering on the gas stove and she’s been keeping an eye on it. Only now, she eyes me as I shut the bedroom door behind me. “Headed home?” she asks.

“Huh? Oh, y-yeah.” Sober enough to talk without words feeling funny in my mouth. That’s fine. Takes me a minute to pick up my backpack. “Gotta…gotta head out.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? I’ve got a nice stew going,” she offers.

“No, ’s’okay. I’ll go home,” I say, then add, “Thank….thanks, though.”

She is still studying me, and I don’t like it. If I were sober, I would’ve already bolted—see ya fuckin’ later! But no, no, I can still see him peacefully sleeping in the back of my head, and it makes me feel like I’m dreaming still. I offer her a thin-lipped smile, but she doesn’t buy it.

“Is he still asleep?” she asks.

I nod. I wonder if she checked up on us…the door was open before I left…

She gestures to the seat across from her. “Sit a minute,” she says.

Oh, no. No, no, no. I shuffle towards my exit, my hand gripping the thin, metal handle of the screen door. “A-ah, I gotta…Mrs. H, I gotta run—“

“I don’t think you do.” She smirks with a raised eyebrow.

My shoulders slump. Fuckin’ hell. I trudge back to the seat and slam my ass down in it, dropping my backpack beside me. I fold my arms and shrug. “Okay, okay. What is it?”

I sniffle and flip my hair back with my head.

She sighs a little and studies me even further. Christ, woman, what are you trying to fuckin’ see? “I’m not a fool, you know,” she says.

My eyes widen briefly and my heart stops. For a second, I think she’s going to tell me she knows I’m desperately in love with her son, she hates homosexuals, and she’s gonna throw me out of the house, never to see him again. She’s gonna send him to private school. No, send me to private school, again, even though I failed out the first time. The whole scenario plays out in the space of time that my heart stops. But, she says something else.

“I know you go off and smoke that marijuana,” she finishes, wrinkling her nose. “Smells like a damn skunk every time you’re in here.”

I relax instantly. This I can deal with. My lip curls and I shrug a little again, but don’t say anything.

“Do your parents know?”

I look down and recross my arms. “I dunno,” I mumble. “Don’t really matter.”

I can feel the cascade of thoughts threatening to burst from my mouth. They don’t care. I barely ever see them. They gave up on me. I was a cute little red-headed kid they used to do the apple juice commercials back in the day, that’s all. Then I got rude, I hit puberty, I stopped studying, stockholders hated me, I got passed over. I started smoking…’cause it didn’t matter.

Nothing matters.

“Gen.”

When I look at her next, there’s…sympathy in her face. “Wh-what?” I say. I briefly wonder if I said any of that shit I was thinking out loud. “I won’t smoke in here, okay—“

“I know, hon, but…” She pauses. “I know I’ve said this before, but if you need anything, you can come here, okay?” Gillian smiles. It’s warm and wrinkly and…genuine. “Angeal talks about you all the time. I mean, you two are practically inseparable as it is.”

It’s true…I smirk to myself. “You don’t think I’m a bad influence, do you?” I say, half to the floor.

She chuckles. “He’s not that type. Never has been. He’s just like his father that way.” She takes a drag off her cigarette and blows the smoke to the side. “Oh, there are some things. I know he smokes, though I wish he didn’t. But every boy has some things he doesn’t tell his mother…”

Yeah, she’s got a point. Angeal is always telling me shit—“don’t smoke in the house”, “don’t smoke weed in the house ever”, “stop that, we’ll get in trouble”, “you should be more careful”, “are you some kind of idiot?”, and so on. Even if I were an axe murderer, or if I showed up here looking like Ziggy Stardust…actually, I take those back. Did both of those for Halloween some years ago…

But he wouldn’t be influenced. He’s got his morals, and his honor. If he hasn’t turned into a deadbeat stoner like me by now, I don’t think he ever will.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more the opposite is true. In a few months, we’ll both be training for SOLDIER. I couldn’t let him go alone. I rub my eyes fiercely.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” she asks again.

I nod, afraid that the next words out of my mouth are going to be a choke. I stand up, chair scraping against the linoleum, and wave to her. I bolt out the door in a light jog to make my escape. The thin screen clatters, followed by the steady chunk of the trailer door behind it.

“Fuck, fuck,” I hiss to myself. It’s cold out and I forgot my jacket…and it’s getting dark. I glance back. Warm light peers through the windows, and I can still smell that stew. Angeal’s probably waking up soon.

I picture him, sleepily rolling over. “How long was I out?” he’ll ask me, eyes barely open. I’ll touch his face. I’ll run my hands through his thick, dark hair. I’ll…

I can’t. Fuckin’ can’t. I start walking home.

(G.)